NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cable operator Cablevision Systems Corp, on Sunday accused Scripps Networks Interactive, the provider of the HGTV and Food Network channels, of holding viewers hostage as it seeks a 200 percent fee hike.
Their earlier fee agreement expired at midnight on December 31, and the HGTV and Food Network channels went dark for the 3 million or so Cablevision subscribers in the New York area.
Cablevision said in a statement that it had offered to continue broadcasting HGTV, the home and garden programer, and the Food Network, while both parties sought to resolve their impasse. The cable company did not specify the amount of the fee Scripps wants for its channels.
Cablevision also said that Scripps removed its channels from Cablevision "with virtually no warning."
Scripps said on Sunday it had been trying to have productive talks with Cablevision for more than six months, but such requests, including one as recently as Sunday afternoon, have been rejected. It said it remained willing to negotiate.
Scripps said that under the current contracts, Cablevision pays about 25 cents per subscriber for the combination of Food Network and HGTV. It said that rate was "substantially lower" than rates earned by other, individual top 10 cable networks.
(Reporting by Phil Wahba in New York, additional reporting by Jessica Hall in Philadelphia; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
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